Essay Haiku: Haiku and Basho’s Haiku

Haiku still popular today, was Japan’s first writing genre to make an impact with the rest of the world. One thing that could have contributed to the success of the Haiku is how simple they are. Haiku’s are only three lines, they also fallow a syllable count of five seven five. Because of structure that Haikus fallow they can be easily translated from one language to another. So if a Haiku is wrote in Japanese it could be translated to almost any language in a matter of minutes. Haiku’s are usually about the simplest things in life; like seasons, nature, animals and even places. Thanks to their simplicity even the lower class with less education can still read and understand Haikus.
In my opinion Haikus are too simple. I do not like how they take a big idea and compact it into a small three-lined poem. When I read a Haiku I feel they are missing something, there is not enough detail to tell what’s going. For example when I read Basho’s Haiku about the frog and the pound, I want to know more. I want to know why the frog jumps in the pound, is it because he is getting away from the dry land problems, or because he likes the feel of the water? Or what happened after the frog leaped into the water. For me a Haiku is too short or too open, it does not have a begging, middle and end. And does not tell you enough about what is going on. I enjoyed reading The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Basho because it goes more into detail, he describes what he saw and how he felt, but when I read his Haikus I don’t get the same understanding of it. For example when Basho describes the seventh month and sixth day as unusual, it made me wonder what was unusual, what happened to him or how was he feeling on

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